Skies of Amber
by Shadow0Fire
Summary: Years ago, Xiaoyu's best friend was not Miharu, Panda, or Alisa, but an American; Samuel Auttenberg. Despite their ethnic differences, they forged a friendship that would last through both the miles and years that separated them. His soul set on finding his long-lost friend once again, Samuel will travel the globe and defy anything that tries to steal away his childhood love.


**It's probably a bad idea to start yet another story without finishing my other fics first, but I'm really in the mood for a Tekken fic, and hey, what's a man gonna do? Anyway, as a foreword, I am going to try and keep this story as Tekken canon as possible, with one major exception; most, if not all, characters are going to speak English. While I would usually attempt to keep things as realistic as possible and have every character speak the language they are supposed to, that would be really tedious and troublesome. Because honestly, Google Translate isn't the most reliable of implements when it comes to language translation, and moreover, I doubt that you readers want to Google every sentence of dialogue in this damned thing. (And although I just got done saying all of that, I doubt many of you would care in the first place; I'm sure I wouldn't have been flamed for not using the right languages, but just in case some heartless troll felt like doing that in the future, I went ahead and let everyone know about something so trivial). **

**One more thing; I have no idea when each Tekken Tournament took place (Not when the games were released, but which years the tournaments supposedly took place in the Tekken-universe). So if anyone is going to be bothered by the wrong years or anything, I'll just let you know that that non-canon element will be present.**

**Gah, one more thing! (I lied up above) Don't criticize grammatical errors in a character's dialogue! Most of the time it's purposeful! Because let's admit, while we try to sound sophisticated when we write, we don't actually talk that way when we speak. Not everyone speaks with grammatical precision, and I aim to make it so! Because if every character in the fic sounded like an English teacher, we'd all just be reminded of why we don't like our English teachers!**

* * *

"Just wait Sammy! I'm gonna make the biggest, bestest theme park in the whole wide world, and I'm gonna put it right here!"

The little eight year-old Chinese girl ahead of Samuel stamped her foot down on the grassy hilltop that overlooked the city of Jiaxing.

Samuel, only a year older than her, plopped down on the grass behind his friend in order to catch his breath; he didn't have the same kind of energy as this girl did.

"But...but Xiao, I don't think the adults would wanna a theme park this close to the city. Don't you think-"

The dark haired, twin-tailed little girl ahead of the American child turned to face her brown-haired, azure-eyed friend. "Who cares what they want, Sammy! The adults are all just big dummies anyways! You and me are the smart ones!"

Samuel grinned, easily entertained by Xiaoyu's bubbly personality. "Actually, it's you and I..."

Xiao crossed her arms. "Who cares, you and me sounds better! Only you silly American boys say stuff that way!"

"Well only you silly Chinese girls say stuff your way!"

Both Samuel and Xiaoyu made faces at each other, in an attempt to show their disagreement with the opinion of their friend. But as they witnessed the ridiculous expressions plastered on their faces, the two carefree children couldn't help but laugh. Their trivial argument quickly dissipated as the both of them snickered and poked fun at each other for the gruesome faces that were made.

After a good ten minutes of mindless banter, about the color of the sky and why apples tasted like apples, the two kids fell into silence. Xiaoyu had taken a seat in the grass next to Samuel, not caring for the stains it might've made in the seat of her skirt. Xiaoyu cared little for school, and by extension, she cared little about her school uniform as well.

After five minutes of silence, the Chinese girl beside Samuel broke it with a question she already knew the answer to. "Sammy... you have to leave next week, right?"

Samuel frowned, not wanting to think about his imminent return to the States. "Yeah... Mom and Dad's job here is almost over, so we'll have to go back home next week..."

Xiaoyu frowned right along with him, an expression of great sadness on her face. "B-but... I don't want you... to go home..."

"W-well... me neither, but I'm just a kid, so..."

Xiaoyu stuck out her lip and pouted. "Well... that's stupid! You should tell your mom and dad that you wanna stay! And if they say no, you should hide here! You could hide at my house! Grandpa would be OK with it! And if not... well I'll make him OK with it!"

Samuel sighed. "I don't think Mister Wang would like that, Xiao. Besides, I think Mom and Dad would be scared if I did that, and then when they found me, they'd be super angry and ground me forever!"

"But if you hide they won't find you!"

"Dad says you can't hide from Mom when she's angry. He says he knows that from ex... um... experi... uh... experi-something."

Xiaoyu hugged her knees as she thought about her best friend leaving. "That's not fair... you should stay with me. Maybe... you can come next year...?"

Samuel looked away from the sorrowful girl. "I... I don't know... China is reaaallllyyyy far away from America, Xiao. And Mom and Dad didn't even want to come here in the first place, but their boss made them. So..."

Xiaoyu rose to her feet and angrily stomped her feet on the ground. "No! You have to come back! I'll miss you, Samuel!"

Samuel stood up as well, and he had to angle his gaze just a little bit downwards, in order to meet the dark eyes of the slightly shorted girl beside him. "I'll miss you too, Xiao. But I'm just a kid, so-"

"Let's get married!"

That unexpected outburst stopped the American boy in his tracks. For a moment or two, he wondered if what Xiaoyu had just said was really what he had heard. "W-w-what?!"

Xiaoyu repeated herself, fixating Samuel with a stern gaze. "I said, let's get married! Grandpa says that when a boy and a girl get married, they stay together forever! So let's get married!"

Samuel waved his arms in a panic. "B-b-but... getting married is only for adults, Xiao! We're just kids, we can't get married! I bet the priesty guy wouldn't even see us! And my parents would be really angry! And Mr. Wang probably would be too!"

Xiaoyu looked down at her feet, defeated in her illogical attempts to keep her friend with her instead of letting him go back home. But within a few moments, she perked up again. "Oh! Okay, give me your pinkie then!"

"What?"

The tiny girl waved her arms for emphasis. "You said that people in America make pinkie promises when they promise to do something no matter what! So... let's make a pinkie promise to get married when we're both adults! OK?"

Samuel couldn't argue with that logic. After all, pinkie promises were the real deal. You didn't go back on a pinkie promise, or an evil monster would eat you night: that's what his old friend Tucker had told him anyway. Samuel had also made sure that Xiaoyu knew just how important a pinkie promise was; so he knew she wouldn't go back on it either, because neither of them wanted to be eaten by an evil monster.

Coming to the conclusion that this was a good idea, Samuel took hold of Xiaoyu's pinkie and intertwined it with his. Without knowing the implications of the seemingly childish promise he was making, he agreed to marry this Chinese girl that he had only known for a year, and yet had been the best friend he had ever had.

"Yeah. When we're both adults, we'll get married. It's a promise!"

And with that, the two children, from different sides of the world, made a promise that would impact the future of their lives, and neither of them was aware of it as the afternoon sun descended towards the horizon over the city of Jiaxing.

* * *

Samuel Auttenberg couldn't help but reminisce about the halcyon memories of his childhood as he stepped into the famous Kansai airport terminal in Osaka, Japan. The twenty year old young man had spent most of his flight thinking on such things; the flight had taken fourteen and a half hours, and since he couldn't sleep on the way here, Samuel had to find a way to entertain himself during his travel.

But of course, the American traveler didn't have enough memories of that one year with Xiaoyu to occupy his thoughts for nearly fifteen hours, so after awhile he had moved on to think about the eleven years that had separated them. A lot could happen in eleven years. For example, Xiaoyu could become a skilled martial artist, and Sam could suffer tragedy at home.

Samuel's family had visited China on business in the year 2000, and when they returned home in 2001, the inconceivable terrorist attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon had robbed Samuel of his parents. After that horrendous event, custody of the orphaned child had been passed down to some common orphanage in the state of New York: Samuel didn't have any relatives to take him in at the time. And so he had spent the next seven years of his life in a miserable state of being, believing that he had no one left in this world to care for him.

That misery had finally come to an end in 2008, when Samuel saw a live broadcast of the third Tekken tournament. He cared little for the series of fighting tournaments, and would have left it alone, but just when he had lost interest in the fight about to take place on live television, he heard the booming voice of the tournament announcer;

"Ling Xiaoyu versus Bryan Fury! Round One: fight!"

The orphaned seventeen year old teenager had been instantly captivated, as he not only recalled the girl from his childhood, but also witnessed the amazing woman she had become. Since that day, Samuel had devoted himself to finding a way to reunite with the girl form his past, and as a precursor to doing so, he made sure to witness all of the subsequent Tekken tournaments up until today, three years later.

Samuel thought it was amazing that fifteen years had passes between the second and third Tekken tournaments, and yet there had been five tournaments in three years after that. And the number was about to increase to six, as the second Tekken Tag Tournament was drawing near. Of course, Samuel had no fighting skills of his own, and therefore had no intention of joining. However, he knew that Xiaoyu would be participating in this tournament as well, so he had come to the conclusion that this was his best chance to find her.

Samuel was jostled out of the recesses of his mind as a large man in blue pants and a red top bumped into him. Samuel wasn't ready to catch himself and fell to the floor with a thump. Before he could get back to his feet himself, he was lifted off of the ground by the same man that had knocked him over.

"Sorry man, you alright?"

Samuel looked into the blue eyes of a blonde man several times his size. He clutched a hamburger in the hand that was not hoisting Sam off of the ground.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine. I wasn't paying attention, sorry."

Before Samuel could politely request to be placed back on the ground, someone else did it for him.

"Bob! I think he would probably like to have his feet back on the ground again."

Both men looked over to see a young brunette woman coming to stand beside them, looking at the hamburger in her companions hand with disdain.

The man named Bob quickly placed Samuel back on the ground. "Sorry Julia. I forgot that I was actually holding him up." He turned to Samuel as well. "Sorry about that."

Sam just nodded, content with having this awkward meeting end already. He caught the last bit of bickering between the two strangers as they walked away from him.

"Bob, you just got off of the plane, how did you get your hands on a hamburger already?"

"Come on, I was hungry! Besides, you know my motto; SPEED AND-!"

"Don't say it."

Samuel sighed as he watched the two of them leave. He had heard the stereotype that Japanese people were weird, but out of everyone in the airport, those two were the weirdest, and they were obviously not Japanese. Walking up to one of the many large signs that had maps of the terminal, Samuel was met with a long list of directions and location names... all in Japanese characters.

"... Maybe I should have actually learned some Japanese before coming over here..."

The brown-haired man was startled as gloved hand came to rest on his shoulder. He turned to face the grinning face of a very attractive dark haired girl decked out in blue attire. Her unzipped top revealed a well-endowed bust that Samuel tried very hard not to ogle.

"Lost?"

Samuel nodded. "Y-yeah. Do you speak English?"

"I just did, didn't I?"

Samuel scratched the back of his head as he realized the stupidity of his own question. "Yes. Sorry, dumb question. Anyway... I am lost. So..."

The girl looked up at the map, her shoulder length hair swaying with the motion. "Alright, where are you going?"

Samuel told her that he was simply looking for the exit, and the teenage girl pointed him to both his location and the exit to the Kansai Terminal. After she finished, she dug something out of one of her short pockets. After struggling to get whatever it was out of her tight shorts for several moments, she handed Samuel a folded map.

"Here. This map has an English translation for everything on it. You'll need it to get around Osaka easily."

Samuel couldn't believe the generosity of this girl. "B-but won't you need it?"

"What? No way, I live here! I'm just waiting for someone. Oh, and by the way, if you want that signed, you'll have to gimme a pen, cuz' I don't have one."

Samuel cocked an eyebrow at her. "Um... no offense, but why would I want it signed?"

The girl looked at him questioningly. "You... do know who I am, right?"

Samuel shook his head. "Sorry, but I don't. I'm kind of out of the loop when it comes to stuff like that..."

Frowning, the girl jabbed a thumb at herself. "Really? Come on, you'd be the first teenage guy I've met that has no clue who I am! I'm As-"

"Asuka!"

Interrupted in the beginning of her self-introduction turned to face the voice behind her that had called her name. "Feng! You're finally here! Geez, I thought you had gotten lost again!"

A topless man with an incredible physique and pointy eyebrows sighed as he withdrew a map from a bag he was carrying. "I am confused by these vague instructions. They are not very clear."

The girl named Asuka, or so Samuel concluded her name to be, grabbed onto the man's arm and began to pull him away in another direction.

"Oh, forget it! At this rate we'll both be late for the opening ceremony. We have to be at the Mishima Estate in three hours, y'know? Let's get going!"

Samuel watched as the two people left, apparently forgotten by the girl who had been so agitated about Sam's lack of knowledge. While the American did have to admit that the girl had looked vaguely familiar, he still didn't know who she was. Shrugging his shoulders as well as mentally shrugging of the encounter, Samuel unfolded the map the girl had given him, pleased to find that it was indeed in English.

He quickly located the exit to the Kansai terminal and began to weave his way through the crowds of people to get there. As he did so, his thoughts turned towards the encounter he planned to have with Xiaoyu. What would he say to her? More importantly, would she even remember him? Even Samuel had temporarily forgotten about her, after his parents had died. It wasn't really all that implausible that perhaps Xiaoyu had forgotten about him as well.

Even more worrisome than that though, was the circulating rumor that Xiaoyu had eyes for Jin Kazama, and was totally devoted to him. That kind of thing bothered Samuel to no small extent, and he decided not to entertain the thought.

As he stepped out of the sliding doors that was the portal between Kansai and the rest of Osaka, Samuel realized he wouldn't have time to dwell on such inner thoughts anyway. As he laid eyes on the bustling, crowded city, it was obvious that all of his focus would be required if he were to navigate the city successfully. Deciding that his first order of business was to find a hotel of some sort, Samuel proceeded to hail down a cabby, praying that whoever it was spoke some decent amount of English. If he didn't, it was going to be a _long _day.

**So there we go. It's kind of short compared to what I normally write, but I'm short on time and eager to get started, so for now this is acceptable. Remember that the best thing you can ever do for a writer is give them feedback. Even constructive critique is helpful!**


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